Last night I had the misfortune of watching a movie called Dracula 3000. As a huge vampire and Dracula in particular fan, I will watch almost anything with that label attached to it. There are some really interesting things done to the Dracula phenomenon and on reading about the plot for this movie I was intrigued; a small crew stuck on a derelict spaceship out in space with a vicious killer out to get them – who could resist? Turns out that there are bad movies and then there is Dracula 3000! A pathetic excuse for a movie.

Dracula 3000 has a cast of Casper Van Dien, Erika Eliniak, Coolio, Tony ‘Tiny’ Lister and Udo Krier. Despite a known cast, this movie is beyond redemption. The crew of a salvage ship led by Captain Van Helsing finds a long lost ship called the Demeter. They board it to claim salvage rights and on exploring it find the corpse if the Demeter’s captain tied to a chair with a crucifix clutched in his hand. Despite the misgivings of his vice-captain Aurora and intern Mina Murray, van Helsing claims salvage rights and decides to tow the ship back to earth. As the crew prepare to do so, their own ship is dislodged from the Demeter and moves away from them, leaving the crew stranded aboard the derelict Demeter with no means of communication.

Cargo specialist 187 and deckhand Humvee find a cargo bay full of coffins. As Humvee heads back to the bridge 187 stays back to examine the coffins and is attacked by a vampire. His crew hears his screams and rushes to him but finds the obnoxious 187 is now turned into a vampire who attacks his crew. Mina falls prey to him. Aurora runs away and finds herself in a room with the master vampire who calls himself Orlock who reveals his intentions to make his way to earth and conquer it. He makes his way to bite Aurora and we assume she is bitten. Aurora is then seen running to the rec room where she tells Van Helsing and Humvee about her encounter. Believing to he turned, they tie her up. 187 attacks them at this point but is killed by Humvee using a pool cue as a wooden stake. Aurora confesses that she is infact an undercover android cop who was sent to investigate salvage activities. Although feeling betrayed Van Helsing and Humvee release her from her binds. The captain and Professor use the ships computers and finds out that the captain is a descendant of the legendary vampire hunter Abraham Van Helsing and that Orlock is another name for Dracula. They also feels that in order to save earth from Orlock, they must set the course of the Demeter right into a neibhouring binary star.

Van Helsing and Aurora search for and fight Orlock. The captain is soon killed by Orlock who then promises Professor freedom from his wheelchair and immortality. Aurora and Humvee then have to kill a now vampiric Mina and Professor and escape Orlock by sealing themselves into the bridge and locking the door. However neither can pilot the ship and hence they both resign to inevitable doom as the ship heads towards one of the suns. As they take comfort in the fact that Orlock will also be destroyed, Aurora says that she used to be a sexbot programmed for pleasure before she got updated! The last scene is the destruction of the Demeter.

One of the worst scripts and acting ever, especially from that moron Coolio who is so bad, you want to jump into the screen and strangle him to death! The cast seem to take their roles as a joke and the story is ludicrous – despite the Dracula and Van Helsing history, Orlock is said to be from a planet of Vampires called Transylvania, in the Carparthia star system. Really? 2 out of 10!